INFORMAL POLL: MOST BUCKLE UP

Only 28 percent of Florida's drivers use seat belts, according to an April survey by the American Automobile Association.

But a recent informal News/Sun-Sentinel survey of Palm Beach County drivers indicated that a majority of people already wear a seat belt. And of those who don't, two-thirds said they will start buckling up when the mandatory seat- belt law goes into effect on Tuesday.

The other third, however, said the law infringes on their rights or a seat belt is a hazard or too constraining. And regardless of the threat of a $20 fine, they won't buckle up.

Of the 104 people asked, 60 said they wear a seat belt at least on the highway on long trips and have been doing so for some time. Of those, a majority said they wear a seat belt all the time.

About 10 percent of the people asked said publicity surrounding passage of the law convinced them it's safer to wear a seat belt, so they started buckling up.

Another 10 percent who now don't wear a seat belt, however, said the law will not change their behavior.

Here is a representative sample of comments by people polled.

-- "I feel it's the best thing I could do to save my neck," said Richard Bowdry, 39, of Lake Worth, explaining why he never drives anywhere unless his seat belt is buckled. He has good reason to do so.

Bowdry, a computer programmer for IBM, worked summers during college at a General Motors proving ground near Detroit watching test vehicles with dummies crash into concrete walls at 35 mph.

"They had instruments on them to tell what part of the body was hit and at what force. In general, the seat belt pretty much protected the dummies. Without a seat belt, most of the results were very bad. Sometimes they were even thrown out of the car," he said.

-- Gordon Zeimer, 75, of Delray Beach, disagrees with Bowdry. He thinks the state Legislature is infringing on his rights to do what he wants with his body as long as no one else is affected.

"If I can figure out a way to get around it, I will. To me it's an imposition. It's my car and they're telling me what to do with it. Pretty soon they'll start telling me what kind of oil and what kind of gas I should use. When they start getting into my bedroom, I'll resist," he said.

-- For a different reason than Zeimer, Joe Minelli, 14, an eighth-grader at Boca Raton Middle School, doesn't wear a seat belt as a passenger and said he won't wear one as a driver.

-- Todd Miller, 17, who lives west of Boca Raton, doesn't care about being cool. The freshman-to-be at the University of Florida in Gainesville began wearing a seat belt the day he got his driver's license.

"A lot of kids say it's not cool to wear a seat belt. Let them say it. They'll get killed," he said.

-- Fred Miller, 27, of Boynton Beach, doesn't care about being cool, either. Three weeks ago Miller was driving his new Nissan turbo 300ZX off Dover Street in Delray Beach when he was run off the road. His car flipped over into a canal. Miller said if he weren't wearing a seat belt, he probably would be dead. "The seat belt held my head up. I was unconscious. The water was up to my chest. Without the seat belt, I would have either gone through the front windshield or drowned," said Miller, owner of a moving and storage company.

-- In contrast to Miller, Robert Angel, 27, who lives west of Boca Raton, said not wearing a seat belt saved his life in an accident he had while exiting the Throgs Neck Bridge in New York.

"If I had a seat belt on I probably would have been killed. From the initial jolt, my body was loose enough to avoid the impact of the steel being crushed in around me. But if I was wearing a seat belt, the steering wheel would have been pushed through my chest and I would have been crushed and compacted with the car," said Angel, recalling the 1980 accident that left him in a coma for 1 1/2 weeks.

"I don't know. What if (your car goes) into the canal and you can't get the seat belt undone in time to get out?" Vukich said.

But her husband, a 16-year veteran of Palm Beach County Fire-Rescue, thinks otherwise.

"Wise up and wear 'em. Better be safe than sorry," said Sam Vukich, 40.

-- Kathy Cloutier of Lake Worth agrees with Sam Vukich, but said if not for the law she wouldn't wear a seat belt.

"If they didn't have the law, I wouldn't remember. It's a good law. They're out to save people's lives. It should have been passed a long time ago and now that it is, I will wear it," said the secretary.

INFORMATION BOX

POLL RESULTS

In Palm Beach County, 104 people were polled about seat belt usage. Polling sites were Boynton Beach Mall and Town Center Mall in Boca Raton.

60 people -- wear a seat belt at least on long trips on the highway. A majority of these people said they wear a seat belt most of the time.

11 people -- wear a seat belt now at least some of the time because of publicity surrounding the new law.

22 people -- don't wear a seat belt now, but say that on or soon after July 1, when the mandatory seat belt law goes into effect, they will start buckling up.

10 people -- don't wear a seat belt now, and won't change their behavior once the law goes into effect.

1 person -- does not wear a seat belt now, and said he does not know if he will wear one after July 1.